Well they certainly weren't when I played otherwise I would have known what to do!

There's no way to go back into the Brain Twist to check, but I also don't remember seeing that last sentence about what order to put the words.

The problem is for a question like "Annul daze caused by ambrosia". An answer that put the synonym for daze before the synonym for ambrosia was marked wrong. I believe most anagram quizzes allow the words in any order.

Hmm. Maybe it was really quickly changed to include all the instruction? I know for sure the line about putting them in the order that makes sense was there when I played, because I read this thread first before I went to play, so I made a point of looking at the introduction.

Yes, I saw the correction notices coming in for that one and added a note. I wasn't aware the database updated to reflect that, so it's a good thing to know.

Yes! The wording, not the information, is a problem I encounter several times a week playing the Daily Email Quiz, and it is almost always a sports question. And it is beginning to happen on the Knockout too.

Often the sport is not named in the question or only an acronym is used, but the acronym is not one that is solely applicable to the sport the author is thinking of.

Today there was a scoring question about the "AFL". I have no idea which "AFL" was meant, but it clearly was not the American Football League given the answer used terms not even used in American football - regardless of the league. Maybe Australian Football League? Still could not figure it out, even with the answer!

Whoever the Sports editors are, can you please see that questions specifically indicate the sport? I am tired of ruining otherwise perfect scores because of the question's lack of clarity.

If you try and submit a sport single question, there's a big red message asking you to specify the sport that the question is about. I would imagine this reflects the guidelines for full sport quizzes as well.

That would imply that the questions you keep seeing are quite old, and were written before those guidelines were made. Therefore, the only way they will be changed is if you send a correction report (if you weren't doing so already).

But in Knockout, if you have no idea what sport the question is asking about, your opponent probably doesn't either. That makes it fair and even.

Each individual question in a full sports quiz won't necessarily give what sport is bring asked about or totally spell out the name of the league if the entire quiz is about the same topic. The quiz title and subcategory which is displayed in most if not all games can often give you the context info you need.

It's displayed for all games.

Recently I remember a question in the Global Challenge which asked what team a player was on. It came from a quiz in the NBA 2000-01 subcategory of NBA By Season, but all that was provided was "Basketball : NBA By Season". Neither the question nor the quiz title mentioned the year, and you can't get the quiz's introductory text. http://www.funtrivia.com/trivia-quiz/Sports/Players-and-Their-Teams-24664.html was the quiz. It's true that Damon Stoudamire never played for the three incorrect answers, however (and I still would have had a 25% chance of getting right if I had the year). I vaguely remember encountering the same issue for an Olympics question.

It appears this is only an issue for the special (sub)categories. It appears it shows the second most specific subcategory. For example, I did the People Themed E-K set, and two questions were in the "Hanks, Tom" and "Ford, Harrison" subcats, and it showed "People Themed E-K" as the subcategory. Another question was in the "Hitchcock Taglines" subcat, and it showed "Hitchcock, Alfred".

The regular categories properly show the most specific subcat as far as I can tell.

Is this the right place to ask this?

If you have followed these guidelines and submitted a correction note properly, but it is ignored, what should your next step be? How long should you wait to do more?

EG A wrong answer is given because the quiz writer mixed up Fred Bloggs and Fred Flintstone and you pointed it out?

If it is just a typo, I rarely go back to look, but if it is a factual discrepancy, I often go back to see if a change has been made. If it is just a matter of opinion, I am interested to see the author's take on new opinion, but where you have something such as the EG above, it is worrying when it is not put right.

Sooner or later an editor will look at every single correction note. If the author ignores it, or says it doesn't need to be changed, the editor will check anyway. This can take time, however - when there are a lot of new quizzes requiring a lot of editing time, the editors in that category may not get around to checking corrections for days, and corrections that require them to do extensive research in order to determine whether the question needs to be changed, and how that can best be done, may take longer still. And if the author is still active, the editor may leave it several weeks to give them a chance to do it themselves before stepping in.

I wouldn't even consider taking any further action until at least a month has passed. By then something should definitely have happened. You could then retake the quiz and send another correction note, politely repeating the content of the first one, and asking them if they are planning to make any changes, or whether they wish to discuss it. (This shouldn't be necessary, as the correction note system has a mechanism that allows authors to respond to a correction with an explanation as to why they don't think any change is needed. As an author, I think it is only polite to use that if I don't think any change is in fact needed.) If the author is not active, and the matter is being addressed by an editor, the new correction note will flag the fact that there is still an issue to be considered. It is possible that a busy editor who decides no change is needed may not send you a message to explain why, but I am sure they would do so if you submitted a follow-up note.

Thank you

Sorry if this is already answered elsewhere but, I have spotted a minor syntax error on one of my quizzes and, as I am still fairly green at quiz writing, I have not hit this before. What is the best approach for fixing this? If I make the correction through the edit my quizzes function, will the quiz
be offline pending review? Would taking the quiz and submitting a CN on myself be too cumbersome?

Please advise.

Take the quiz and submit a CN, then fix it. While you can edit the quiz yourself (and that does not automatically take it offline), it is better to do it via the CN system - this means that an editor at some point will check to make sure that you were correct about the required change, that you have made it, and that you didn't introduce any other problems in the process. I usually also take the time to cast my eye over the entire quiz on which correction has been submitted - it's surprising how many small things leap to the eye when you are only looking for them, and not reading the quiz for content as you edit.

Go ahead and make the change and resubmit the quiz - there's a field where you can send a note to the editors to let them know exactly what you changed so they don't have to re-edit your entire quiz.

I'm on a phone, I don't know if it's different. I just made my first Match quiz and on the preview layout it shows the match thing but not the interesting info. It's easier for me to check for errors that I or my phone causes (my autocorrect changes actual words, and with quotations spaces the word away from the quotation) and I was wondering if I hit the submit button at the bottom of the match part does it take me to a preview of the interesting info? For future reference.

-Nam

You cannot see the interesting information in the preview screen while writing a match quiz. Terry knows that this is a concern, albeit not urgent, but I don't know how hard it would be to change, and where it is placed on his list of priorities. I often submit my match quizzes with an apology for any typos I didn't catch, since I usually find at least a couple when I use the preview screen.

Good to know. I checked my quiz six times before submitting it so hopefully I caught them all. Anyway...thanks.

-Nam

It doesn't happen often, but sometimes a perfectly correct and valid question in a quiz has an alternative answer, equally correct, that the compiler didn't know about.
Both times it has happened to me, I received a nice thank you reply, so "just saying" to authors, check for alternatives before submitting.

Yes, both authorrs and editors do check for this, but sometimes something slips by us all.

And that is why we depend upon players to use the correction system. It's an essential part of maintaining the quality of the site.

I agree with encouraging people to use the correction system but is there any mechanism in place for ensuring they are replied to?My experience is that you have a roughly 50-50 chance of a reply...hardly satisfactory.

Replying to the person who sent a correction isn't a requirement. Responding to it in the system (and by fixing the error if there is one) is. I would honestly be against making responding to the player a requirement as there are some individuals who have a bad attitude it's best not to engage with them. (And yes, the editors see each correction notice so let us deal with those people, please.)

Basically, responding to correction notes in every instance wastes time on the editor's part, time that could be better spent looking at other corrections.

That's not to say that we don't contact the correction senders on occasion, especially if we need their help in reworking the question.

I respond considerably less often than 50/50.....probably it's closer to 1/100.